


King of the World

by maxxofbraavos



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bad Weather, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, Nonbinary Pidge | Katie Holt, Team Bonding, Thunderstorms, Yahtzee RUINS FRIENDSHIPS, pidge and hunk friendship, pidge is always scheming, pop culture references, this is how you know i'm from a jewish family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-22 03:46:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11371923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maxxofbraavos/pseuds/maxxofbraavos
Summary: A hellish thunderstorm breaks out and renders the castle-ship unable to fly. Pidge suggests a game of Yahtzee, to pass the time and to encourage team bonding; however, Pidge had another type of bonding in mind for two particular paladins.





	King of the World

Rain pounded on the tiny circular windows of Lance’s room. Pidge had gathered the group into the room before, somehow, for a ‘friendly’ game of Yahtzee, but they ended up schooling all of the others (Lance couldn’t imagine how, as Pidge had been playing it their whole life), and everyone slowly scattered. Pidge seemed to have some kind of hidden agenda; they packed up the small game slowly, finding ways to shoo Coran and Hunk, while Shiro and Allura left on their own accord. Pidge closed the Yahtzee tin with a gigantic grin plastered on their face, and narrowed their eyes at Lance. 

“See you guys later.” the green paladin mused, nodding towards Keith silently as they slipped right out of the room. How did Lance not catch that? From the moment he did it, Lance regretted confiding in Hunk. He thought he had dodged a bullet in not telling Pidge about how he felt about Keith, but instead telling Hunk. Hunk seemed like the perfect confidant from the outside, right? He was kind, good with animals, a chef, practically a human teddy bear, for god’s sake. Lance forgot to factor in his friendship with Pidge. The two of them were inseparable. They could communicate without speaking, just in sequences of eyebrow-raises and head nods. So of course, Hunk told Pidge, and now Pidge was trying to play matchmaker.

Just as Lance began to get pent up with emotions, lightning flashed outside, illuminating the room, and a loud crack of thunder followed. He let out a deep breath which he didn’t even know he’d been holding in.

“You alright?” Keith’s voice filled the room far easier than the thunder’s low grumbling. Lance turned his head to see Keith still sitting on the edge of his bed, one knee tucked into his chest, and the other leg dangling towards the floor. Lance’s flat expression turned into a small smile as he noticed that Keith had traded in his ultra skinny jeans for a pair of pajama pants today.

“I’m fine, yeah.” Lance replied. If Pidge was going to set a trap for him, fine. Lance would push himself to give his audience what they wanted. He wasn’t going to kick Keith out. “I love thunderstorms. It sucks that we can’t fly, but I think this is nice. They bring me to this strange sense of peace, like the chaos outside finally matches the chaos in my head. And everything is brought to some kind of equilibrium.” He finally looked at Keith, allowing him to see that real emotion was behind this… whatever this was.

Keith was taken aback by Lance’s genuine attempt at conversation. No sarcasm, no banter, just a pure opening statement. Keith liked to keep to himself, and he did find him and Lance’s back-and-forths to actually be quite fun, but this was something else. Having been raised without much companionship, Keith valued almost nothing more than a good, in-depth conversation. “I like them, too.” he began tentatively. A large part of him wanted to open up to Lance about how he felt about him, or at least how he thought he did, while they had this moment; and yet, he couldn’t bring himself to. He’d feel like he was taking advantage of him, so he’d have to settle for Lance’s way, taking baby steps. “When I was younger, it would pour once or twice out in the desert, just like this. I used so say that it made the whole world look blurry.”

“Blurry?” Lance laughed lightly at the comparison, glancing out the window. The water beat against the pane so frequently that he couldn't even see through it clearly. “I like that. I think you might have been onto something.” The room was void of speech for a moment then, as thunder struck again, violently. Lance exhaled again, as if the electricity gave him the ability to do so. “It makes me feel almost powerful. Like I’m a rechargeable battery, or even like I’m King of the World or somethin’” Fucking Pidge, they were an evil genius. How did they know to plan all of this? Or did they just spawn the plan from the top of their head? He always tried so hard to hide anything raw and emotional from Keith. This was destroying that barrier rapidly.

Keith couldn’t help but to smile. “That must feel amazing, Lance. I don’t think I’ve ever felt something like that from something so simple.” Keith could finally see himself leaping free. He had yearned for an emotional connection with Lance for all too long, no matter how much he denied that to himself. He could only hope that the conversation would soar to unbeknownst heights for the two of them. This situation put Keith at ease, perhaps in the same way a thunderstorm affected Lance.

“Keith, I-” Lance found the words pouring from his mouth just as carelessly as the rain did from the clouds. Impulsivity was his fatal flaw, and he knew that, yet had no way to stop it. His subconscious sat within a playpen, built by his bottled up emotions, helpless, and banging on the gate. “It’s the same feeling you get after something like this.” Lance felt himself leaning in, eyes fluttering shut, yet his subconscious screamed. No Lance, no, no, no! You’re going to mess everything up, you impulsive idiot.

Keith was stiff at first. His eyes were opened wide as he realized that Lance’s lips were approaching his. His immediate instinct was to jump away, and maybe to run, but he wasn’t going to let himself continue on this way. Keith was done denying himself life’s simple pleasures. And so he kissed Lance back. Keith had minimal relationship experience, and so he struggled with things that came naturally to Lance. While Lance slid his hand around the back of Keith’s neck instinctively, and laid the other onto Keith’s cheek, Keith stuck his hands out while his head swam. He was overwhelmed with emotion, still kissing rather rigidly, too. He settled on lazily resting his hands on Lance’s waist, and then he loosened up.

Was this happening right now? Usually, it would take Lance days to contemplate a checkmate like that, but now, in the moment, he’d done it? He was in his bedroom, kissing Keith Kogane. At first, he was afraid that Keith was going to, well, he didn’t know, slap him in the face or something? But he didn’t, and oh my god, they were kissing. After Keith finally relaxed (which was an evident change to Lance) everything felt so natural.

This was kind of nice.

Just as the kiss began to feel too lengthy, too good to be true, Lance pulled away. His eyes found the left corner of the floor while Keith’s found the left.

“I-” they both began at the same time

“You go.”

“Quiznack!”

In a playful frustration, the boys both returned to silence, looking back at each other again. Keith was so proud of himself, so happy. Lance looked angelic to him, with artificial light bouncing off of his messy afternoon hair. “Lance,” he said quietly. “I think I like you.”

Lightning.

“Given, I’m not too sure what ‘liking someone’ even feels like, but I think this is it. I’m sorry if I’ve scared you off, or something like that, but I felt like now was the time to say it.”

Thunder.

At this point, Lance’s brain looked like a scene from Spongebob that he frequently quoted. All of the file cabinets were on fire. The tiny Lances were running around frantically, searching for something, anything to say. He could only hope that they wouldn’t come up with beef wellington. “I like you, too.” he had to push the words out, like there was a barrier of drying cement between his ideas and their fruition. “I like you a lot, like, since the day we met.” That wasn’t beef wellington or the fork on the left. Lance always had anxiety problems, he was relieved that he was able to say exactly what he meant to. His eyes, however, found the floor again.

Keith found himself reaching out for his counterpart using his hand to gently tilt Lance’s chin back up. Were these romantic instincts? If only they could have kicked in a few minutes ago. He leaned in towards Lance, his eyes closing instantly this time, as he gave him another soft, lingering kiss. “How does, uhm,” he mumbled nervously “How does this work?” 

“What, never been with a guy before?” There was Lance’s dazzling grin, kicking in as he regained a sense of superiority. To him, at least, Keith was ridiculously handsome. Just the little things about him worked their way into Lance’s daydreams; how his silky hair hung around his face, how his collarbones peeked out from underneath a loose t shirt, how the moonlight would reflect off of the scars on his skin. Keith was the prettiest boy Lance had ever seen, could he really never have been with a guy before?

It was Keith’s turn to blush, as he turned the color of his lion. Technically he had never been with a guy, but was that really what Lance was asking? “A guy, a girl, a gender non-conforming individual… nadie, as you would say.” Keith was totally embarrassed. As much as he would bust on Lance, tell him he had no game and all that, Lance totally had game. There was no way that he’d been with no one just as Keith had. This wasn’t like a battle, or even an argument, where Keith always felt in control of the situation. He felt like putty in Lance’s hands.

Lance was surprised. He understood some of it, Keith had been raised alone, and literally in the middle of the desert, but really, no one? He was in the Garrison long enough for someone to have scooped him up. Looking back on it, Lance was happy he was gone, because they all must have been blind. “A stud like you? I can hardly believe that.” His grin still danced on his face, because he was doing what he did best- comic relief. The tiny Lances in his head were taking it real easy now, sitting back in their desk chairs and lazily sipping sangria. 

“Lance, do me a favor and never call me that again, will you? That’s weird.” Laughter infused itself into Keith’s words more and more as he continued to speak. Lance was the most attractive when he was in his element, goofy and smiling just like that. His smile was infectious, and Keith caught it quickly in this vulnerable state. A smile turned into a grin, which turned into a cascade of giggles.

Clearing his throat, Lance readied his next line in his head. He had the perfect one for this, in fact, it was from where he had originally picked up this joke in the first place. “Tell me about it, stud.” He twisted his foot on the floor as if he were crushing a cigarette. However, to his dismay, Keith looked even more confused than before. The thunder crashed, filling the silence before Lance spoke again. “What, Keith, you’ve never seen Grease?”

“Uhm, no.” Keith replied with a headshake. “Am I supposed to know what that is?” He thought that maybe he’d heard of a Grease, but he wasn’t too sure.

“Yeah, you probably should.” Sometimes, Lance found Keith’s lack of Earth culture quite amusing. It should be a war crime to have never seen Grease, but he did literally grow up in the middle of nowhere; and besides, it’s not like he’d never seen Star Wars, or something like that. Wait a second… “Keith, have you seen Star Wars? You’ve seen Star Wars, right?” To Lance’s dismay, Keith stared back him silently and sheepishly.

“HOW CAN YOU NOT HAVE SEEN STAR WARS!”

“Hunk. shut up! They’ll hear us!”

Keith and Lance’s focus shifted as they heard two unfortunately familiar voices coming from the outside. While Lance stood up slowly, Keith raced to the door, lightning flashing ominously behind him as he opened it. There sat Hunk and Pidge, each with an empty cup in hand for eavesdropping purposes. Lance was near horrified when he saw Keith’s expression, eyes practically bulging out of his head, fists clenched, his entire body beginning to shake.

“Pidge. Hunk.” Keith said with a dull, quiet power. His stern tone was enough to make Hunk become visibly nervous, scooting his back flat against the wall. Pidge even looked a bit scared, underneath their outer layer of amusement; fear hid in their eyes, beneath those round glasses. “If you two aren’t out of my sight within the ne--”

“Keith.” Lance said softly, extending a hand to rest on his shoulder. Lance’s instincts were back at it, just doing whatever they wanted before consulting his brain first. Keith’s body was warm, swarming with anger, embarrassment, and countless other emotions, Lance was sure. He was experiencing them all, too. Keith was rigid, yet he seemed to slowly relax under the brush of the other’s rough fingertips.

Anyone could have seen Pidge’s next shift in emotion. Cogs were clearly turning in their head. They saw Lance’s hand on Keith’s shoulder, they saw Keith relax beneath his touch. They had gotten exactly what they wanted. A grin slowly crept onto Pidge’s features as they waved, reached out, and pressed the button to close Keith and Lance back into the room. 

Pidge- 1, Klance- 0.

**Author's Note:**

> hello everyone! since i was very, very young, my father and i would go out and sit on our koi pond during thunderstorms. they inspire me more than anything and one night, having finally figured out why they made me feel good, i was inspired to write this. i hope you all enjoy it!


End file.
